NSW lawyer burned alive: jury hears

Bradley Max Rawlinson, Bernard Justin Spicer and Michelle Sharon Proud have pleaded not guilty to murder and were seated in the dock on Tuesday as the trial began.

Crown prosecutor Chris Maxwell QC told the court Ms Foreman died after a "campaign of deception" that was calculated to frighten her and culminated in the early hours of October 27, 2011.

He said the Crown alleged that two people entered her house after opening the front door with a key.

Then the pair - allegedly Spicer and another woman, Wendy Evans, who has pleaded guilty over her role in Ms Foreman's death - carried a bucket of petrol up the stairs towards the sleeping young woman, Mr Maxwell said.

"It is abundantly clear that it was used and then set alight by one of those two persons when Ms Foreman was there," Mr Maxwell said.

"In quick time, a ferocious blaze commenced. She was unable to escape that inferno, although she clearly attempted to."

Ms Foreman's body was found near the landing outside her bedroom in the northern Wollongong suburb of Corrimal, badly burned and with black debris in her lungs, "indicating to the (autopsy) doctor that the deceased had been alive and breathing during the fire".

The Crown alleges Rawlinson had been in a relationship with Ms Foreman but that in the lead-up to her death he had also been involved with Evans, and that the two lovers sent a flurry of text messages to each other in the weeks before Ms Foreman died.

On October 1, 2011, Rawlinson allegedly wrote to Evans: "Yeah, so do I, but just keep thinking: one more week, then she's gone and we are away from her."

Another text allegedly read: "I can't wait to see you tonight. This is hell, she's a cow, she's carrying on like an idiot, god I want her gone."

The trial continues on Wednesday, when the remainder of the crown case is expected to be outlined.